PATH resumes Hoboken-WTC service

With little advance notice and a minimum of public relations fanfare, PATH Wednesday morning resumed rail service between Hoboken, N.J., and its World Trade Center Station in downtown Manhattan.

Ridership at PATH's Hoboken Station was light Wednesday morning, though it is expected to increase significantly once riders who have committed to alternate means of trans-Hudson public transit travel, such as New Jersey Transit's No. 126 bus, alter their purchasing plan as February begins.

The restoration of the HOB-WTC "green" line completes PATH's restoration of all weekday and overnight/weekend routes, except for pre-hurricane weekend service linking Newark and the World Trade Center; both the WTC station and Exchange Place Station in Jersey City are closed during the weekends. As well, service frequencies on restored routes are not yet always up to those prior to Hurricane Sandy's impact on the system last October.

The service restoration comes as a representative of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen criticized Railway Age coverage of PATH's recovery effort, which included praise from Port Authority of New York & New Jersey Executive Director Patrick J. Foye for the work performed by Invensys Rail Corp. on the PATH system, which the Port Authority oversees.

In an email note to Railway Age, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen General Chairman Richard Clark wrote, "Invensys did not get involved until two weeks [after hurricane damage restoration efforts began]. Once on the property, they assisted the PATH signal design group in a joint effort to restore the system." Clark said the report "gives the appearance that the hardworking and extremely dedicated men and woman of the PATH signal division needed to be rescued."